Sunday, August 05, 2012

GOD & MAN

 http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages/AN00020/AN00020094_001_l.jpg
British Museum
Young's Night Thoughts

Blake's relationship with God was intimate. God was brother and friend to him. God was within his breast, his brain and his hand. His Imagination was filled with God. Human nature was God's image which man should adore.   

Jerusalem, Plate 4, (E 146)
 "I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;
 Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:
 Lo! we are One; forgiving all Evil; Not seeking recompense!"

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 11, (E 38)
"Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast."

Annotation to Berkley, (E 664) 
"Man is All Imagination God is Man & exists in us & we in him What Jesus came to Remove was the Heathen or Platonic Philosophy which blinds the Eye of Imagination The Real Man"
  
Annotations to Lavater, (E 597)
"human nature is the image of God" 
  
Everlasting Gospel, (E 520)
"God wants not Man to Humble himself
This is the trick of the ancient Elf
This is the Race that Jesus ran   
Humble to God Haughty to Man
Cursing the Rulers before the People    
Even to the temples highest Steeple
And when he Humbled himself to God
Then descended the Cruel Rod
If thou humblest thyself thou humblest me    
Thou also dwellst in Eternity       
Thou art a Man God is no more
Thy own humanity learn to adore
For that is my Spirit of Life" 
Milton, Plate 2, (E 96) 
"Come into my hand    
By your mild power; descending down the Nerves of my right arm
From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine. planted his Paradise,
And in it caus'd the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms
In likeness of himself. "
at

1 comment:

  1. Susan J.8:04 AM

    hmph.

    I try to take these Blake quotes in a spirit of his pre-eminent awareness of divine immanence.

    But I resist Blake's dualism, in insisting that God is not ALSO transcendent.

    I believe this is a BOTH-AND situation, not an either-or.

    Yes, God is brother and friend. But also lord and savior.

    Yes, God is within us and we are made in God's image.
    But God is also much more than just us.

    The opening lines you quote in Everlasting Gospel seem to fly in the face of, e.g. Luke 4.

    :-)

    Susan

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